


eyes big love-crumbs

by isilya



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Doppelganger, F/F, Self-cest, Timeturner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-17
Updated: 2005-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-04 10:08:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/392643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isilya/pseuds/isilya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They look at each other for a minute. Hermione is shocked at how tired her other self looks. Her hair is messy. There are dark shadows underneath her eyes and a bruise on the side of her throat. She makes a noise and reaches out to touch it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	eyes big love-crumbs

_There’s nothing quite like giving in to a temptation you’ve been resisting for months_ , Hermione thinks, slipping quietly out of bed and fumbling for her wand, her Arithmancy book and her dressing gown. It’s just that she can’t sleep when her homework is incomplete. Figures and numbers scream through her head, and she needs to sleep, knows she must, feels guilty for every second she lies awake twitching with the need to solve the last set equation.

She doesn’t really have a plan, all she knows is that someone said it’s easier to solve a problem when you have someone to talk it over with. So she makes a little promise to herself and waits. 

She’s still a little shocked at the light touch on her shoulder. 

“Hi,” she hears, and turns to see herself looking back at her. “We only have an hour.”

“Oh,” she says, blinking into the gloom. “I didn’t know if I’d actually go through with it.” Her hand slips unconsciously to the Time Turner around her neck. She’s sure this is forbidden, against some law written in capital letters and carved in stone somewhere. But nobody ever told her that going to visit yourself like this, planned and prepared for, was against the rules. 

“ _Lumos,_ ” she whispers and sets her wand down into a stand. “Why an hour?”

Her other self smiles, she actually looks a bit sad. “It took the first Hermione a while to work up the nerve.”

“Oh,” she says again. “The first Hermione? We’re on a loop? I wonder–”

“Apparently I’m the sixth,” her other self sits down on the bed. “That makes you the seventh, I guess.” 

” The seventh,” she sits down on the bed too. “But aren’t I you? I mean, do you–”

“–remember what you’re saying. Yes, but I don’t think it’s the same every time. You’ll come back in an hour, I guess you’ll know then.”

They look at each other for a minute. Hermione is shocked at how tired her other self looks. Her hair is messy. There are dark shadows underneath her eyes and a bruise on the side of her throat. She makes a noise and reaches out to touch it.

“I’m bruised,” she says. “How did that happen? Did we get into a fight about Arithmancy?”

Her other self is watching her intently, looks down at where her fingers are brushing the mark. Hermione wonders what her other self is feeling. 

_Breathe,_ she thinks as she feels herself going cross-eyed. She’s watching herself watching herself brush her own neck. She can almost feel time ripping apart and rearranging itself. It makes her feel faint.

“Breathe,” her other self says gently, and takes her hand and kisses it. “It doesn’t last very long.”

Hermione thinks she might throw up, but her other self’s fingers close, vise-like, around her own.

“Hermione,” her other self says, “Hermione, look at me. Talk to me.”

She opens her mouth but no words come out. _Arithmancy,_ she thinks, _we need to solve the equation._

“It’s _love_ ,” she finally exhales. “If the square root of a negative number is _i_ , then the square root of _i_ is love.”

Her other self smiles at her and leans over to wipe her forehead. She didn’t realize she was sweating, but she is, she’s sweating and little drops are running down the tip of her nose.

_I’m going to be sick,_ she thinks desperately before she opens her eyes–she didn’t realize they were shut–and suddenly everything is back in focus. Sharp and clear and she gasps for air, feeling tingles pulsing into her bloodstream.

“Better?” her other self asks.

“Oh Merlin,” she says shakily. “Better.”

“A little more than I thought,” her other self says. “I don’t know what it is, I’ve never heard of any Time Traveler illness before.”

Hermione laughs a little hysterically at that.

“I think I must have been crazy beforehand to decide to do this.” 

“I think so.”

Her other self wipes her forehead again, and Hermione shrugs off her dressing gown with a sigh.

“Do we ever solve the equation?” 

“I don’t remember so. Maybe we do this time.”

Hermione scrapes her hair back and ties it up firmly.

“I don’t think I can do Arithmancy at the moment,” she presses her hands to her cheeks. “I’m so hot, I can’t do Arithmancy now.”

_Oh_ , she thinks as her fingers slide over her cheeks. Her skin is damp, moist. Her fingers are cool. She lets them trail down her neck and she rubs at her collarbone restlessly.

Her other self is watching her, a little half-smile on her face and Hermione thinks that’s not fair.

“What is happening to me?” she says, unable to stop sliding her fingers across her own skin, the blankets, the heavy curtains of her bed. She rolls onto her stomach, face almost in her other self’s lap, and lets her body go completely limp. 

_I might just melt,_ she thinks, _might just melt into the bedspread, trickle off into a stain no one will ever be able to erase. Future generations of Gryffindor will be led through and there’ll be one dark patch on the floor and everyone will whisper, that’s what became of Hermione Granger._  
  
“Except,” she murmurs, “that’s not what became of me, you’re what became of me and you’re beautiful.”

It’s a somewhat sudden realization, and she props herself up onto her elbows and just looks at her other self. _Yes, beautiful,_ she thinks, _I’m beautiful, I’m all these wonderful shades of brown._  
  
She snakes an arm around her other self and pulls upright.

“You know what happens next, don’t you!” she accuses, trying to look her other self in the eye.

“I do,” her other self helps pull her up the bed.

“What then?” she asks. “What happens next?”

Her other self leans in and kisses her.

_Oh, lips_ , she thinks a little desperately, trying to ignore the feeling coiling in her belly. Her hand slips up and underneath her other self’s nightgown, and her fingers curl into the warm skin there.

“Help,” she says a little desperately, “I think you’re drowning me.”

“Shhh,” her other self says, and kisses her again, “you’re trembling.”

“I can’t help it,” her fingers have found the cotton of her other self’s underwear, and she spreads her palm wide over the heat underneath. She feels her other self still and suck in a breath. “I’m you, oh, can I?”

“You’re not making any sense,” her other self replies, “I guess I’m not making any sense. You don’t have to ask.”

Hermione surrenders her neck to her other self’s lips. She can feel the skin tingling there, her other self making a mark that’s she’s already seen. She sighs and slips her fingers down, sliding and slipping and making her other self squirm.

It’s not long until her other self is shaking against her, making little curses Hermione was mostly unaware she knew. It feels familiar, soft damp girl skin under her fingers. It feels foreign, soft warm wet tongue in her mouth.

“Oh,” her other self says, and Hermione knows that sound and lets her fingers slide deep, deep and across and–there. Her other self lies panting, heavy, sprawled half across her. 

“I want to,” her other self says, lifting her head and kissing and breathing hard into Hermione’s mouth. Her other self rearranges her, sprawling her out on the bed and sliding down her body.

Hermione’s hips shake at the first touch. Her other self’s lips are soft, a little dry, chapped. They catch on the skin of her thighs. She wants to beg, clutch at the bedspread and arch helplessly.

She didn’t know she could be like this.

She wants to scream, and almost does when she feels her other self’s mouth and firm tongue. _In a little while_ , she thinks in her daze, _I get to do this._

She whimpers. _In a little while–_

I get to taste this.  


**Author's Note:**

> Written for [phineasjones’](http://livejournal.com/~phineasjones) [e.e cummings challenge](http://www.livejournal.com/users/phineasjones/335605.html) to write a story based on this poem:
> 
> i like my body when it is with your  
> body. It is so quite a new thing.  
> Muscles better and nerves more.  
> i like your body. i like what it does,  
> i like its hows. i like to feel the spine  
> of your body and its bones, and the trembling  
> -firm-smooth ness and which i will  
> again and again and again  
> kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,  
> i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz  
> of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes  
> over parting flesh…And eyes big love-crumbs,
> 
> and possibly i like the thrill
> 
> of under me you quite so new


End file.
